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It took several months for it be 'green' and it's the only one green on my account today..:)
GlobalSCAPE, Inc. (NYSE MKT: GSB), a leading developer of secure information exchange solutions, reveals alarming details about the devastating effect on business when core systems fail.
The survey of 283 IT professionals and business end users found that nearly 90 percent of organizations unexpectedly lose access to critical systems, including mail servers, back-end processors, and file servers, and almost a third deal with downtime issues at least once a month.
“Downtime, while understood to be tremendously costly and frustrating, has become commonplace and even expected in the enterprise,” said James Bindseil, president and CEO of Globalscape. “Oftentimes, downtime can be avoided, and companies should expect more from their vendors.”
Beyond the obvious loss of employee productivity, IT executives shared the costly and widespread ramifications of downtime on their businesses. Of those who responded:
76 percent said downtime frustrates their end users
43 percent lost crucial data or important communications
52 percent said their workforce has been unable to send or receive critical, timely files
Just an Hour of Downtime Could Cost One Million Dollars or More
While lost files or delayed emails may not have an "assigned" value, per se, every minute that a core system is down costs companies money. Globalscape’s survey found that 60 percent of enterprise employees who estimated the financial cost of downtime on their organization said that a single hour without critical systems costs their company between $250,000 and $500,000—and one in six reported that one hour of downtime can cost $1,000,000 or more.
Active-Passive Clustering Can’t Guarantee High Availability
Despite what end users might think, IT isn’t always at fault when core systems go down. More often, servers become overloaded, shutdown, and require manual intervention before the system is restored. To avoid the issue, many enterprise IT professionals use active-active or active-passive clustering, but active-passive environments can still leave companies at risk.
In fact, survey respondents who have active-passive clustering environments reported losing 34 percent more data and critical emails than those respondents who have active-active clustering environments.
“Companies need an ‘always on’ solution that can protect their businesses and customers,” said Bindseil. “That’s exactly why we will be offering active-active file transfer solutions; companies simply can’t afford to settle for less.”
Download Globalscape’s new report – Three Ways System Downtime Affects Companies and Four Methods to Minimize It – for the full survey findings and an actionable checklist to help companies achieve high availability.
http://www.globalscape.com/news/2014/4/30/new.globalscape.study.details.the.devastating.effect.on.business.when.core.systems.fail
thanks.
thumbs up!
From Keith S..
PACIFIC ETHANOL – PEIX-NASD
As expected, the company issued a great quarter in Q1, though a large non-cash charge of $35 million against the warrants made them print a loss in Earnings Per Share—69 cents. But the more important cash flow, or EBITDA, was a positive $35 million, on 40 million gallons of ethanol sold.
I want to repeat, I am not worried about a loss in this quarter.
Between the $28 million raise at $16/share this quarter and cash flow, PEIX is almost net debt free. What to do with all that cash? One thing they will want to do is re-do their debt to a lower interest rate, and other than that CEO Neil Koehler said he just wants to have cash on hand. This company hasn’t had cash on hand for a long time.
Also, they started paying tax already. They didn’t really have to this quarter, but chose to, presumably to smooth out cash flow and earnings over the quarters that would help analysts build a better model.
Madera has restarted, and it will take a few weeks to be up to full capacity. At 100% capacity, the 91% ownership of PEIX = 182 million gallons per year.
This is a very different story than GPRE, in the sense that PEIX really can’t hedge, as the west coast price for ethanol is very different than the main Midwest Chicago hub, AND the Los Angeles hub isn’t liquid enough. You can’t run derivatives through those contracts. So for better or worse, it’s a mostly spot price company. Right now, that’s a lot better. But it sure is volatile! Here is a custom built Bloomberg chart of PEIX margins over the last 12 months, up until yesterday:
pacethanol
Other tidbits from the conference call just ended:
-CEO Neil Koehler said he has lots of grain storage capacity, and Madera added to that
-there’s 5.5 million warrants left to be exercised
-they’re working on getting some real sell-side analyst coverage, not just paid services and me
One caller brought up valuation—PEIX is now trading at just over 2.5x annualized Q1 EBITDA. Because of higher volatility and smaller size, PEIX will trade at a permanent discount to GPRE. But 4x multiple is probably a bit more realistic.
Having said that, I only own 2000 shares, and I’m happy with that for now. If I owned any more this would not be a sleep at night stock for me.
Overall, the ethanol market in the US is in good shape. Inventories continue to be well below the norm for this time of year. Imports have stopped once again. Fears of cheap Brazilian sugar cane based ethanol swamping North America? Won’t happen; pricing isn’t going to allow that.
I do see both stocks trading higher, though the easy money has been made. I have small positions in both and I’m happy with that.
They also mentioned about M&A activities plus 5 shark tank-like presentation within 2 months & Madera will be fully operational within 'several' weeks.
quietly rising since a week ago..
may 17th call options not acting along with the stock price
To many things to figure out in this spider-waved -complex world :)
Magic Jack is good but longer term..I think..they'll be dead..Now people can skype/gmail video call, facebook video call - all for free. But of course..there must be internet all over the world - which has not happened yet.
Stock - same here..Learning new stuffs everyday and thanks to all the knowledgeable people. Hopefully someday..I'll also help the noobs like me..when I know more.
Let's hope that May will be better. :)
Please stop by our booth..to discover managed file transfer solutions with experts
https://twitter.com/Infosecurity/status/461811920425975808/photo/1
Even though I buy microcaps..I follow macro..here's one good analysis (in my mind anyway) of Mrs/Mr market..
http://streettalklive.com/index.php/analysis/daily-x-change.html?id=2195
In it this am to scalp a little bit.
Added GSB SEP 20 2014 2.50 C @ 50 cents. Was able to grab only 50 C. Will be adding more if there is a seller.
Someone tweeted - "How nobody is worried about the fact that absolutely no risk is being priced into equities is scary, especially after today's GDP."
Add Madera for next Q
he must be a buyer..he's fooling around..he's smarter than you and I..he's a propaganda specialist..you should know better. An ihub friend of mine - did not buy PEIX ..because he ended up believing in slashnuts propaganda. It was selling for $7 when it happened. All is good in PEIX neighborhood
no revenue though
All is good in our speculation but PEIX must deliver first :). Those secondary offerings - not so fun! It is going to be a nail biting 48 hours and I never use nail cutter...lol
Understand but there should be over supply of corn as well this year - and that is good for $PEIX. Not sure if I shared with you the quarterly report of Monsanto..but they sold a lot of corn seeds. Here's one not so old news..
"Corn, by far the company's largest segment, reported $3.4 billion sales, compared with $3.3 billion a year earlier.
The Seeds and Traits division is expected to continue driving the company's fortunes in coming years, as worldwide demand for food increases. With a finite amount of land available to farmers, the company contends that bioengineered seeds and better growing practices are critical."
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/news/article.asp?docKey=600-201404022359KRTRIB__BUSNEWS_5145_50802-1¶ms=timestamp%7C%7C04/02/2014%2011:59%20PM%20ET%7C%7Cheadline%7C%7CMonsanto%20posts%20strong%20second%20quarter%2C%20surging%20sales%20in%20corn%2C%20soybeans%20%5BSt.%20Louis%20Post-Dispatch%20%3A%3A%20%5D%7C%7CdocSource%7C%7CMcClatchy-Tribune%7C%7Cprovider%7C%7CACQUIREMEDIA%7C%7Cbridgesymbol%7C%7CUS;MON&ticker=MON
http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2014/04/27/corn-industry-suffers-amid-chinas-gmo-concerns/8239975/
WASHINGTON – China’s decision to effectively halt shipments of U.S. corn is unlikely to cause lasting economic harm to South Dakota and other Midwest corn producers, with farm groups and commodity analysts seeing the trade skirmish as a short-term annoyance for America, the world’s largest corn exporter.
In November, China began turning away shipments of corn from the U.S. containing a genetically modified seed from Syngenta that regulators in Beijing have yet to approve. But there are signs the U.S. agriculture will be able to rebound from the disruption and benefit long-term. That’s because of China’s growing demand for corn used in livestock feed as consumers increase their consumption of proteins such as chicken and pork.
“(China) won’t be able to feed their population on their own long-term, so their dependence on suppliers like us will dictate that they won’t be able to be as picky as they have been,” said Scott VanderWal, South Dakota Farm Bureau president.
The decision to clamp down on shipments of U.S. corn has sparked speculation that China produced a bumper crop of its own, and government officials are using the appearance of the unapproved crop to get out of costly contracts entered into when prices were higher.
Major importer
Government officials in Beijing also have said the country is too reliant on the U.S. for its corn imports. Still, China is on track to become the world’s largest corn importer by the end of the decade.
The trade dispute has highlighted irregularities in the approval process for genetically modified crops, with some countries approving new varieties faster than others. China has approved biotech varieties in the past, but the country’s review process tends to take longer than the U.S. or other proponents of the widely used crops.
Lisa Richardson, executive director with the South Dakota Corn Growers Association, said the trade disruption is a “huge issue” that probably will affect the approval of genetically modified crops.
“It’s not just Syngenta,” she said. “There’s others. All companies have to figure out how we get around this because there are new (biotech) traits getting ready to be released every year.”
Syngenta submitted the corn trait to the government for approval in March 2010, and China had accepted the grain until recently. The Syngenta corn, known as Agrisure Viptera, has been engineered to protect the crop against damage from insects such as corn borer and corn rootworm.
Slow approval
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack met with officials from the Chinese government in December. They discussed ways to synchronize their review of new genetically modified seeds to quicken the approval process, given USDA concerns Vilsack cited last week about the time it takes China to approve new biotechnology traits.
“They don’t start their process until we finish ours. So it lengthens acceptance of the crop for an extended period of time,” Vilsack said.
China has given no indication when or if it will approve the Syngenta seed.
The National Grain and Feed Association estimated this month that Beijing has turned away 1.6 million tons of U.S. corn.
$2.9 billion loss
U.S. agriculture has lost $2.9 billion from the recent disruptions, much of that from lower corn prices. The grain and feed association found the Chinese rejections of U.S. corn have lowered prices by 11 cents a bushel, resulting in a projected loss of $1.14 billion for the last nine months of the marketing year ending Aug. 31.
Bruce Babcock, an Iowa State University economist, said if China produced more corn or found it could buy the grain cheaper from somewhere else, that could signal soft demand for the grain this year.
“That kind of suggests that demand for U.S. corn this upcoming year won’t be as robust as maybe people had hoped,” he said.
The Agriculture Department has said Chinese corn imports are expected to increase from 3 million tons in 2012 to 24.3 million tons by 2023, accounting for 35 percent of the growth in world corn imports during that period.
Babcock said if the expected growth in China’s corn demand holds, U.S. corn-producing states will be ideally positioned to meet the growth. Last year, South Dakota was the sixth-largest corn grower.
“The United States is going to claim a complete dominant role in the corn export market in the future to China,” Babcock said. “If China — and I think it’s likely — is going to be a big importer, there’s not that many places that they can find that corn. They are going to be looking at the United States, first and foremost, from now until 2020.”
Not too many shares being exchanged though. May be you go all in?
Thank you. This still is not good that I have to ask someone (moderator) to delete my own post..but will do. :)
lol, but I think allowing yourself to delete your own post should be an option as well.
Looks like- it is not over yet!! Speculators like Jesse Livermore must be busy!!
U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc is working on its next move in a potential $100 billion bid battle for Britain's AstraZeneca Plc after having two bids rejected, as deal-making grips the healthcare industry.
Pfizer said on Monday it made a 58.8 billion pounds ($98.9 billion) bid approach to AstraZeneca in January and had contacted its British rival again on April 26 seeking further discussions about a takeover.
AstraZeneca shares jumped 15 percent on news of the latest takeover plan, which would be the biggest-ever foreign acquisition of a British company and one of the largest-ever pharmaceuticals deals.
The renewed approach comes amid a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the sector, as the industry restructures in the face of healthcare spending cuts and cheap generic competition.
In a statement, Pfizer said AstraZeneca had declined to engage in discussions on both occasions and the U.S. group was now considering its options. AstraZeneca urged its shareholders to take no action and said it remained confident of its independent strategy.
Pfizer's original proposal, made to the board of AstraZeneca on January 5, included a combination of cash and shares and would have valued AstraZeneca shares at 46.61 pounds each - a premium of around 30 percent at the time.
It gave no further details but AstraZeneca's statement said the proposal comprised 13.98 pounds in cash and 1.758 Pfizer shares for each AstraZeneca share.
Pfizer said it was now considering a possible transaction in which AstraZeneca shareholders would receive a significant premium above the value of their shares on April 17, before takeover rumors started.
Citi analyst Andrew Baum said he believed there was now a 90 percent chance that Pfizer would acquire AstraZeneca for at least around 49 pounds a share.
Shares in the British group shot up to 46.75 pounds by 0925 GMT on Monday, after touching an all-time high of 47.17.
Given that Pfizer is likely to have to offer more this time, due to a run-up in AstraZeneca shares since January, the final value of any deal could be above $100 billion.
Under British takeover rules, Pfizer has until May 26 to announce a firm intention to make an offer for AstraZeneca or back away.
INDEPENDENT FUTURE
Pfizer's declaration turns up the heat under AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot, who has been in the job since October 2012 and who made clear last week he saw an independent future for the group, flagging spin-offs of two non-core units as one option to create more value.
Soriot has been credited with reviving AstraZeneca's previously thin pipeline of new drugs, which is badly needed to offset a wave of patent expiries on older drugs.
However, his overhaul - including an ambitious plan to move the company's research and corporate headquarters to Cambridge, England - is still a work in progress and he has also come under from some shareholders over executive pay.
Buying AstraZeneca would give Pfizer a number of promising - though still risky - experimental cancer medicines known as immunotherapies that boost the body's immune system to fight tumors. It could also generate significant cost savings for the U.S. group.
Acquiring a foreign company also makes sense for Pfizer as it has tens of billions of dollars accumulated through foreign subsidiaries, which if repatriated would be heavily taxed.
Pfizer has a long track record of making major acquisitions. The $68 billion purchase of Wyeth in 2009 was its last major deal after earlier acquisitions of Pharmacia and Warner Lambert.
The drugmaker has more recently been divesting certain operations, while mega-mergers had fallen out of fashion in the pharmaceuticals industry following skepticism about how well some of them have worked.
HEFTY RETURN
But Chief Executive Ian Read said he was ready to consider large deals that made sense, adding that buying AstraZeneca would "maintain the flexibility for the potential future separation of our businesses".
The transaction would complement both Pfizer's innovative drug businesses and also its established products business - comprising older and off-patent medicines - which many analysts expect to be eventually spun off.
Tim Anderson, an analyst at brokerage Bernstein, said AstraZeneca shareholders could be happy with a deal that gave them a hefty financial return, but Pfizer's investors might have more mixed views about the wisdom of another very large deal.
In addition to using offshore cash, buying AstraZeneca would be tax-efficient since Pfizer could re-domicile to Britain and enjoy lower tax rates, thanks to attractive incentives to companies that manufacture and hold patents in the country.
Pfizer envisages combining the two drugmakers under a new UK-incorporated holding company, although the head office and stock market listing would remain in New York. But the suggested deal has triggered worries about jobs in Britain's drug sector, which is viewed as a key industry by the government.
AstraZeneca has already laid off thousands of staff as it shrinks its cost base to cope with a fall in sales due to patent losses on blockbuster medicines, while Pfizer has shuttered a research site in Sandwich, southern England.
However, Britain's finance minister George Osbor
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/28/us-astrazeneca-pfizer-idUSBREA3R0H520140428?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=992637ne has indicated a hands-off approach to any deal, which he described on Friday as "a commercial matter between the companies".
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and Guggenheim Securities are advising Pfizer.
($1 = 0.5948 British Pounds)
(Editing by Mark Potter and David Holmes)
This site does not let me delete my own posts and that I do not like.sometime I get drunk like many other drunks and posts BS...although the last one was a good music. I wish I could delete my own damn posts. I'm pretty sure some of you say that as well..as once in a while..I see junk posts. Well..happy trading ..market opening in few hours!! I hope JVA/PEIX will get some attraction..However, it seems like we're in
Sell in May and Go away- drama..
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sell-in-may-and-go-away.asp
Stock market goes up and down..So why worry? :)
Sold all of my GSB shares and instead bought September 20 call options ($2.5 for only 55 cents)..Hope it crosses $3 by September.
Not for the guitar but for the music and all is good
Ok thank you. I have a friend who owns SDRL too. I found a good deal (in my mind)...buying 10 call options which expire on May 17th. Paid $710 in premium and strike price is only $33. SDRL above $33.71 in the next 3 weeks..hopefully. :)
Coffee Prices Hit 26-Month High
The coffee market is boiling over, with prices almost doubling year to date, and analysts say it is only a matter of time before consumers get burned.
Arabica-coffee prices soared to a 26-month high in the futures market after a top merchant cut its forecast for Brazil's drought-stricken crop. Brazil produces about one-third of all coffee and more than half of the world's arabica beans, which are prized for their mild flavor and used in gourmet blends.
The forecast, by Volcafe Ltd., a unit of commodities trader ED&F Man Holdings Ltd., was the latest sign that Brazil's coffee trees haven't rebounded from some of the driest weather in decades at the start of the year. Dry weather stunts the growth of cherries, the fruit that contains the seeds that are roasted to make coffee beans.
The full extent of the damage won't be known until after the harvest ramps up in May. Volcafe cut its 2014 crop outlook by 11% from its January estimate and predicts the world will face a shortage of 11 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee beans this season.
Investors are piling into the $12.1 billion futures market, holding 40,233 bullish bets in the aggregate as of April 15, just below a six-year high hit in March, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. On Tuesday, arabica coffee for May delivery shot up 15.1 cents, or 7.7%, on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange to $2.1180 a pound, the highest close since February 2012. Prices are up 91% so far this year, based on the front-month futures contract.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303825604579517604249104072?mod=rss_markets_main&mg=reno64-wsj
I guess reporters were drunk and now they're realizing right before the earnings..
CORRECTION:The initial version of this story said General Motors had a net income loss in the first quarter. The company saw a net income gain.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/04/24/gm-q1-earnings/8084901/